SHEBOYGAN – Sheboygan officials have charged a driver suspected of crashing into another vehicle after leading police last week on a chase through a south-side residential neighborhood and near a school.

Devante Dean Paul Jerks, 21, of Sheboygan was charged Wednesday with first-degree recklessly endangering safety and attempting to flee or elude a traffic officer, both felonies, in connection with the April 13 chase. Jerks was also charged in Sheboygan County Court with misdemeanors for hit and run and possession of THC.

An officer began tailing the four-door Buick near the intersection of Georgia Avenue and South 12th Street after noticing it didn’t have a front license plate, according to a criminal complaint filed with the charges.

The vehicle quickly accelerated after the officer began following it, making turns onto several nearby streets before heading towards a neighborhood elementary school.

Neither the criminal complaint nor two traffic citations issued against Jerks detail how fast he was allegedly driving, though the complaint notes he passed through one intersection — where he nearly hit another vehicle — at an estimated 30 to 40 mph.

In an attempt to slow the chase down, the officer turned off his emergency lights and sirens as the pursuit neared the school. The fleeing vehicle, though, failed to stop at a stop sign and struck an occupied vehicle at the intersection of Kentucky Avenue and South Ninth Street.

The suspected driver was no longer inside the vehicle by the time the officer eventually caught up to it. The vehicle was registered to Jerks, though, and the officer matched a prior booking photo of Jerks with the man he’d been able to see driving the vehicle. A search of the car also turned up a bag whose green, leafy contents tested positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.